From Campus to Creator: How ACM Brought the Creator Economy to Rutgers

On October 27^th, 2025, Advanced Creative Media hosted an exclusive Pop-Up event at Rutgers University, turning a normal day on the New Brunswick campus into a fun, hands-on content creator experience.

This event was sponsored by Knours and Rutgers’ student public relations group, ScarletPR.

The Goal

Our goal was to give students, k-beauty lovers, and aspiring creators the chance to discover real k-beauty brands and to experience the life of a creator in action.

This event was part of our ongoing effort to bridge the gap between global beauty brands and Gen Z creators and consumers, showcasing how content, community, and ecommerce can all interlink.

We also aimed to raise awareness for Advanced Creative Media’s programs and engage students and local community members to sign up. Our target was 50 signups by the end of the day.

ACM's Solution

Branding and messaging

One of the most (if not the most) significant points we wanted to tackle was our target persona. Typically, we target amateur creators of any size or age, but for this event, our target niche was much smaller and had much less time on their hands – university students.

It was important to us that our event be equally “talkable” and “able to be saved for later”. What this means is that students needed the ability to come talk to us in the moment, but also needed to be able to interpret the booth without talking, as well as get a well-rounded picture of our information without stopping.

Campus booth

We ultimately achieved the “save for later” approach through our comprehensive booth design. We included multiple QR codes and website links for later engagement, as well as making it flashy enough to be photographed and sent to student group chats. We had many people stop to take photos throughout the day, so we’d consider this a great success.

We also highlighted many products from our sponsor, Knours. Guests got to explore some of their product offerings, learned how k-beauty brands want to work with creators, and some even got to win Knours goodies to take home with them.

Interactive elements

One crucial factor in making this pop-up as engaging as possible was to include non-talkative interactive elements. We essentially gamified our pop-up by creating a Spin the Wheel type engagement that could lead to any number of prizes, including raffle tickets for a grand prize.

This solved two problems for us:

• It encouraged students to step up and engage with us.

• It created a natural, easy way for attendees to share their information with us.

The Results

Over the course of the day, we interacted with over 200 participants, made up of students, content creators, and local members of the community. Of those participants, 70% signed up for more information, more than doubling our original goal.

For brands and our sponsors alike, this meant real-time exposure to one of the most valuable demographics in social commerce – Gen Z consumers. This demographic routinely not only purchases products but also actively shares, reviews, and influences others to try new products.

What’s Next for ACM

After the success of our Rutgers event, we’re expanding our events marketing strategy to college campuses across the Northeast, focusing on hosting pop-ups and creator workshops to help educate creators of any size and connect brands with authentic, young voices.

We’ll be hosting another pop-up event at Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus on November 13^th, 2025. We hope to see you there!

If you’re a brand interested in sponsoring one of our future events, we’d love to hear from you. Click here to contact us.